by WorldTribune Staff, August 16, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
A federal appeals court ruled in favor of a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney who said she was fired for refusing to receive the Covid injection after claiming she was wrongfully denied a religious exemption.
In another case, the Connecticut Supreme Court sent a case challenging Connecticut’s school vaccine religious exemption policy back to the Superior Court.
“In addition to these two decisions, since May at least 10 appellate courts have issued decisions in favor of employees who sued their employers over COVID-19 religious or moral exemptions actions or policies,” The Defender noted in an Aug. 1 report.
In April 2022, Rachel Spivack sued the City of Philadelphia and her former boss, District Attorney Larry Krasner, alleging he violated her First Amendment rights and the Commonwealth’s Religious Freedom Protection Act when he denied her a religious exemption for the Covid shots while allowing other types of exemptions.
The lower court sided with Krasner’s office and dismissed the case. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision and sent the case back to the lower court for trial.
“We are grateful that the Appeals Court recognized that these important issues deserve a jury’s consideration,” attorney Lea Patterson, who argued Spivack’s case before the court, said in a press release. “No American should lose her job for living according to her sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Attorney Ray Flores, who was not involved in the case, told The Defender the decision to send the case back to a jury trial was significant: “When future mandates are being contemplated, universities, the government, the private sector and the military are all on notice that religious rights to refuse unwanted vaccination must be respected.”
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In the Connecticut case, two parents are challenging the state’s school vaccine religious exemption policy.
Connecticut law, which requires students to receive certain immunizations before attending school, allows some medical exemptions and, until 2021, also allowed religious exemptions.
In 2021, state officials repealed the longstanding religious exemptions from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and daycare facilities. The new rule allowed students who already had vaccine exemptions to keep them, but the repeal otherwise applied to all students in the state.
Keira Spillane and Anna Kehle sued the governor, the heads of the state’s Departments of Education and Public Health, and a local school and board of education, alleging the new policy violated their and their children’s rights to freely exercise religion, to equal protection of the laws, and to free public education.
The Connecticut Supreme Court sent the case back to the Superior Court to review the parents’ claims related to Connecticut’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act.
“It puts under the magnifying glass the need of strict scrutiny. It’s not over yet,” according to Brian Marks, professor of law and public health at the University of New Haven School of Health Sciences, News8 reported.
“Our case has always centered around Connecticut’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act and our firm belief that the removal of the religious exemption is in clear violation thereof,” the parents’ attorney said.
The Defender noted: “Since May, at least 10 appellate courts have issued decisions in favor of employees who sued their employers over COVID-19 religious or moral exemptions, actions or policies.”
Attorney Warner Mendenhall, who wrote about the trend on his Substack, told The Defender: “I’ve been watching the law for a long time, and I’ve never seen something like this. Ten decisions out of seven circuit courts of appeals in the last three months, that’s just huge.”
The 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals have all issued such decisions in the last few months.
The turning tide has major significance for possible future mandates, Mendenhall said.
“They have created a really good foundation for us to build on going forward.” He added that the cases were setting a precedent for exemptions based on reasons of conscience, not only for religious claims.”
String of favorable rulings for Covid vax religious exemptions continues added by Editor Two on
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